Over the years, there has been drastic improvement in the technology. This has also given increase in the use of social media. Students in the developing and developed countries are becoming more and more addicted to the social media for various reasons. These reasons can change the life style of the students both academically and off-academic.

This improved technology also helps people from all walks of life to share information, pictures and they can also post motivational thoughts on the social media. Social media simply means a online tools created for the purpose of interaction and content sharing among people in the community. In its broader context, social media includes, web-based technologies like you tube, text messaging, blogs, microblogs which includes twitter, social networking services such as Facebook, WhatsApp etc.

The social media is used for individual level, professional level and on business level. On an individual level, social media allow us to communicate with our friends and relatives and it also helps as to gain knowledge of new things, also to develop your interests and be entertained. For a professional level, we can make use of social media to expand or broaden our knowledge in a particular field and build our professional network by connecting with other professional in our industry.

At the business level, it allows us to have conversation with our audience and also helps to gain customer feedback which is useful to develop the business and also allows to elevate our brand. One of the innovative ideas with a very brilliant opportunity with additional scope for advancements is called as social media. Many organizations are making use of the advancement of social media to develop their practices.

People also don’t have to rely on the media or TV to get their daily dose of news it can all be obtained from a social networking site. Social media plays a very important role in every aspects of mankind. But it also has negative side, we can say it through a famous proverb too much of anything is good for nothing. Like a coin with two sides social media also has both positive and negative impact of our daily life.

Kinds Of Social Media:

Social networks like Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn and media sharing sites like Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are used by almost all the people across the world. In addition to these social medias some people use other social networks like Pinterest and google plus. We know only few media but there’s much more social media than the top social media and media sharing networks.

But when we look beyond those social media juggernauts, we can see lot of people are using other different types of social media to connect online for all kinds of reasons. Once there was a time when we could simply categorize network according to their functional capabilities.

For example: Twitter is used for short text content, YouTube is for video and so on. But that time has passed, as more network add rich features like livestreaming and augmented reality. We can categories the networks into 10 general categories which focus on what people hope to accomplish by using them.

• Social networks: social networks help people to connect with other people through online. These networks are also called relationship networks, because it builds relationships among different people and organization and also helps to collect and share information and ideas.
  Example: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin.
   
• Media sharing networks: It is used by the people and brands to share photos, video, live video, and other media online. The lines are blurring between media sharing networks and social networks these days. But what distinguishes media sharing networks is that the sharing of media is their defining and primary purpose.
  Example: Instagram, snapchat, YouTube.
   
• Discussion forums: This is useful for people to find, discuss, and share news, information and opinions. These networks are excellent for market research. This is one of the oldest types of social media.
  Example: reddit, Quora, dig.
   
• Bookmarking and content curation networks: This are a network through which we can discover, save, share and also discuss new and trending content in the world. They are highly effective for driving brand awareness, customer engagement and website traffic.
  Example: Pinterest, Flipboard.
   
• Consumer review networks: The people use these networks to find, review and share information about brands, products and services of restaurants, travel destinations and more. To many websites and online services, reviews are a type of content that adds a lot of value.
  Example: yelp, Zomato, TripAdvisor.
   
• Blogging and publishing networks: It helps people to publish, discover and comment on online content. Blogging and publishing networks is a tool which helps people and brands to publish content online.
  Example: word press, Tumblr, medium.
   
• Social shopping networks: With the help of social shopping networks people can stop trends, they can also follow brands, share great finds and make purchases. These sites can improve the business. It can build awareness about the brands and can also sell products via new channels.
  Example: flip cart, fancy, Polyvore.
   
• Interest-based networks: with the help of these networks people can connect with others who shares a common interest or hobby. The internet-based networks are more useful than other social media, because it focuses on a single subject, such as books, music or home design.
  Example: good reads, houzz, last.fm.
   
• Sharing economy networks: this site is useful to advertise, find, share, buy, sell, and trade products and services between peers. This network can be another channel for bringing in business.
  Example: Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit.
   
• Anonymous social networks: this is a place where people can gossip, vent, snoop and sometimes bully. These network sounds like a fun place to blow off steam.
  Example: whisper, Ask.fm, After school.

Development Of Social Media:

New sites like Facebook are the natural outcome of the development of social media for many centuries. The development of the roots of social media stretch far deeper than you might imagine. For writing letters to live video call people are connected with each other. This is possible only because of the development of social media.

Use of social media before 1900:
letters were used as the earliest method of communication which is used as to communicate messages across great distances, delivered by hand from one person to another. The postal service of the earliest form dates back to 550B.C., and in future centuries this primitive delivery system would become more widespread and streamlined. The telegraph was invented in 1792. By this invention the messages are delivered over a long distance far faster than a horse and rider could carry them. But the telegraph messages were short, they were a revolutionary way to convey news and information.

Although no longer popular outside of drive-through banking, the pneumatic post was developed in 1865 which created a new way for the delivery of letters quickly between recipients. This method of post utilizes underground pressurized air tubes to carry capsules from one area to another.

Telephone was invented in 1890 and radio in 1891. This two was the important discoveries happened in the last decade of 1800s. Both the telephone and radio are still in use today, although the modern versions are much more sophisticated than their predecessors. With the help of telephone lines and radio signals enabled people to communicate across great distances instantaneously, something that mankind had never experienced before.

Social media in the 20th century:
In the 20th century the technology used in social media began to change very rapidly. The birth of internet is the results of the efforts made by the scientists and engineers to develop ways to create networks between the computers after the first super computers were created in the 1940s. In 1960s the earliest forms of internet such as CompuServe, were developed. During this time the primitive forms of email were also developed.

The networking technology had improved by the 70s and in 1979’s UseNet allows the users to communicate through a virtual newsletter. Home computers were becoming more common and social media was becoming more sophisticated by the 1980s. In 1988 chats or IRCs were fist used and continued to be popular well into the 1990’s. Six degrees was the first recognizable social media site which was created in 1997. This site allows the users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. The first blogging sites became popular in 1999 which created a social media sensation that is still popular today.

Social media today:
Social media began to explode in popularity after the invention of blogging. In early 2000s sites like myspace and LinkedIn gained prominence and some sites facilitated online photo sharing like photo bucket and Flickr. In 2005 entirely new site came out which is called as YouTube and it created a new way for the people to communicate and share ideas with each other across great distance. Facebook and twitter both became available to users by 2006 throughout the world.

These are some of the important sites which remains popular social networks on the internet. There are various other sites like Tumblr, Spotify, foursquare, and Pinterest began popping up to fill specific social networking niches.

Pros And Cons Of Social Media:

Pros:

• Social media helps to people who are socially isolated to reduce their loneliness and also helps senior citizens.
• With the help of social media people can have face to face interactions from their place through various sites.
• Social media also facilitates political changes and increase voter participation.
• During the crisis events social media allows for quick diffusion of public health and safety information.
• The social media is also used to prevent suicide by the U.S. military and the department of veteran’s affairs.
• It can help disarm social stigmas like anxiety or depression.
• Social media allows people to attain a goal, empowering users to achieve positive change by crowdsourcing on social media.
• It allows people to access to previously inaccessible educational resources and provides academic research to a wider audience.
• With a large social group creating a contagion effect, social media help to improve overall well-being to the users.

Cons:

• posts in social media cannot be entirely deleted.
• It can endanger our military, journalists and activists.
• Personality and brain disorders can be associated with the use of social media.
• To commit and promote crimes, criminals can use social media.
• It drains our time that we cannot get back.
• Invasion of privacy may be created by advertising practices of social media.
• Social networking sites facilitates sexting, which can lead to revenge porn, criminal charges and a proliferation of personal images.

Conclusion:
Like a coin with two sides social media also has its pros and cons. Nowadays, social media is a really convenient and important communication network for all the people. Compared to disadvantages there are more advantages for using social media. As social media is too convenient for people, almost most of them don’t even have to speak out to communicate with people. In no longer people will lost their communication skills.

Many people use the power of social media to bully someone. A little of them uses social media to do things that against the law, which is a fool behavior. With the development of new social networking sites, the normal life of us has been changed. Our life has become more convenient because of social media. It is a very useful tool for us in 21st century. If we could use the social media smartly,

Having social media will become a good change for us.

Award Winning Article Is Written By: Ms.Aiswarya Lakshmi.J.S

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